Foster Expression, Inc. is a non-profit based in San Diego, CA, dedicated to supporting the area’s foster youth by providing the means for artistic expression. The support we provide is two-fold, uniting artistic expression and self-empowerment in a novel and self-sustaining relationship. First, artistic expression offers therapeutic benefits and levity to this unique population who is so often deprived of such activity; and second, the artwork will be displayed in galleries, special exhibitions, auctions and fundraisers, the proceeds of which will be returned to the artists in the form of college savings funds, thereby empowering foster youth to have a positive and measurable effect in their own futures. We also count a third type of support – that given back to the community whose culture is enriched by the powerful work of an often marginal and silent population.
Rather than a set schedule of classes, we create custom curriculum on a case-by-case-basis. At the most basic level Foster Expression, Inc. is not a facility or a business but an organized roaming response to a social need, equipped with a garage full of art supplies and a roster of volunteers who are passionate and experienced in teaching art.
Though there are multiple services that cater to the unique needs of foster youth, Foster Expression, Inc. is unique in its approach of turning the children’s own creative processes into the means for self-help, self-empowerment, and community betterment.